Today’s photos

Art students paint on fabric covering a 5-meter-high wall of sandbags, surrounding the United Nations offices in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, May 18, 2005. The sense of security built up over years of Lebanon’s postwar calm was shattered when a series of bomb blasts hit the capital over the past three months. A U.N. mission is scheduled to arrive in Beirut later this week to conduct an inquiry on the bomb blast that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. (AP Photo / Hussein Malla)

Christian opposition to run in elections despite ‘unfair law’

By Majdoline Hatoum

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Christian opposition said it will contest the country’s elections despite their insistence that the election process discriminates against Christians.

The opposition finally quelled speculation that it would boycott this month’s polls following a meeting of its Qornet Shehwan Gathering under the aegis of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.

Sfeir is one of the most vocal critics of the country’s election law, which was devised in 2000 when Syrian hegemony was at its most pervasive in Lebanon.

Following the meeting, opposition MP Butros Harb said: “We will deal with the 2000 electoral law as a status-quo, which we refuse, but will go through elections according to the law in order to protect people’s rights.”

Anti-Syria general feels Lebanese political chill

By Lin Noueihed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Just days after returning from exile to a hero’s welcome, the Maronite Christian general who sees himself as Lebanon’s savior from Syrian tutelage has already collided with his country’s political realities. The countdown has begun to Lebanon’s first general election without direct Syrian influence for 33 years, but Michel Aoun and his followers have been excluded from the two anti-Syrian opposition tickets announced so far.

A month ago, when Aoun was nearing the end of a 14-year exile in Paris, he said he expected more than 40 members of his Free Patriotic Movement to stand. That looks unlikely now.

The tens of thousands of youthful, orange-clad supporters who welcomed Aoun in Beirut on May 7 hoped the uncompromising soldier’s return would mark a fresh start for Lebanon.

But bitterness at the cold shoulder he has received from other anti-Syrian politicians now prevails.

The invisible occupation of Lebanon

By Ghassan Rubeiz

Syrian’s withdrawal from Lebanon has increased freedom there, but Lebanon still faces internal threats: self-serving political leaders, a strange power-sharing formula that divides up power among religious sects, and a scary national debt.

Sectarian politics is the most fundamental structural problem in Lebanon.  Political representation and government positions are apportioned to 17 sects, in three religious communities: Christian, Muslim and Druze. The exuberant energy and phenomenal organization of popular demonstrations after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Harari brought people across the religious divides to the street to demand Syrian withdrawal and democratic reforms.

Three months after the demonstrations, this energy may be starting to dissipate in the face of the challenges of nation building — including national elections.

Saad Hariri hints at leading Lebanon govt after ballot

Source ::: Reuters

BEIRUT: The son and political heir of slain former prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri said yesterday that the anti-Syrian opposition would sweep Lebanon